A Silent, But Loving World

From a simple pulpit flanked with red poinsettias, Jim Hansen is talking about Christ’s birthday. About forgiveness and caring and sharing.

“We need to be happy with people who are happy,” he tells his flock, “ . . . and we also need to be sad with people who are sad, to help people carry the burden of sadness.”

As his fingers spell out his words in sign language, Hansen stumbles on “sad.” From the back, where she is interpreting for a man who is deaf and blind, Muriel Hersom coaches, “Keep your hands open, Jim . . . “

Each Sunday, parishioners who are deaf or both deaf and blind come to Grace Bible Church in Highland Park to worship. Most live in the adjacent apartment complex where, for 18 years, missionary Muriel Hersom has been housemother.

“The Lord’s never failed us yet,” says Hersom. She needed a van. He provided. A little extra for Christmas treats? Again, He provided.

Her work is supported through donations sent to the mother mission in Lawrenceville, Ga., earmarked for Muriel or her Commission on Compassion for the Deaf-Blind of L.A. She is one of 300 missionaries worldwide serving the ministry.

Hersom, 58, lives and works in a largely silent world, but she has no time to be lonely. Though most of the residents can neither see nor hear, they sense when she’s not around. And she’d better have a good excuse.

By the touch of her hand, they’ll decide whether she’s mad at them. And, Hersom says, “If you hurt their feelings, they grieve all day.”

Some are human castoffs. They may have been abused by relatives or spent years in a mental hospital.

As one apartment resident said, until someone reaches out to you “being deaf-blind is like being in a casket.”

As a child in Maine, Hersom spent a lot of time with grandparents who were deaf--and she hated it. When they died, she told herself, “This is going to be the end of my being around the deaf.”

But at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, she learned American Sign Language and later was on a team sent to a home for the deaf to teach Sunday school and offer religious services. There, for the first time, she met a deaf and blind man. They quickly bonded. But, she says, spending her life working with the deaf and blind was the furthest thing from her mind.

When she was 23, she went to Jamaica to work with deaf children and, nine months later, she moved to Puerto Rico to teach deaf children Bible studies and everyday survival skills.

Later, she returned to Maine to be treated for a back injury she’d suffered several years earlier in a car accident. There, a friend introduced her to a deaf and blind woman. The woman told her that she had coped well with being deaf but when she also became blind, “I was like poison.” She asked Hersom, “Don’t you believe the Lord loves the deaf-blind, too?”

For Hersom, it was the moment of truth.

Though she fought it, she soon understood that this was to be her calling. She recalls that one day, as she was reading Scripture, “It just seemed so clear. . . . Then I relaxed and said, ‘OK, Lord, it’s your challenge. I’ll follow.’ ”

In 1963, she moved to California for health reasons and, through church connections, made contact with the deaf and blind. Soon, she was going from home to home to see them, driving a 1942 Dodge she’d bought for $50.

To get them out of their run-down apartments and away from unscrupulous landlords, Hersom started moving them into her apartment complex in Silver Lake.

She began dreaming of a place where they could live independently--but together--and, as she always says, “the Lord provided.”

In the fall of 1976--five years after Hersom affiliated with what is now Biblical Ministries Worldwide, the Georgia-based mother mission--the group moved into the Highland Park compound. There, a staff of nine help her run things.

Three years ago, Pastor Hansen, 40, his wife, Joan, and their four young children moved in. Right off, Hansen says, “I made a pact with the congregation. I’d teach them the word of God. They’d teach me sign language.”

For his part, it’s still a bit of a struggle. While preaching, he has to work his way through words like “disciples.”

In his church, the deaf interpret for those who can’t see or hear, spelling out the words by drawing letters on their palms. In the front row, Roberta Distad, who is deaf, interprets with her fingers for the partially sighted on either side of her.

In sign language, Judy King--in a green skirt, red stockings and red shoes--leads the other deaf congregants in “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful.” Those who can speak sing along. Some remember the melody from when they could hear. Others must imagine it.

After services on this day, there will be a holiday meal in the dining hall. The tables are laid in red and green and there is a tree and swags of greenery. Later, the blind will feel the decorations and, Hersom promises, “They’ll see more than sighted people do.”

But this year, there is also the specter of death. Several residents are gravely ill. In his sermons, Hansen never avoids the subject.

“They’ve all suffered so much,” he says. “But if you’re a believer--and you’re deaf or deaf-blind--in eternity you’re going to hear. You’re going to see. Death is a time for rejoicing.”

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Overheard: NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton, introducing fellow sports celebs Mike Montoya of the Raiders and J.T. Snow of the Angels at the first Southern California “Indoor Try-Athlon”:

It’s a privilege--”and it would be even more of a privilege if they’d win a few ballgames .”

Twenty men and 15 women toughed it out at the Try-Athlon, puffing and sweating their way through a total of 30 grueling minutes of treadmill, stair climber and stationary bike.

To the beat of her Donna Summer tape, crimson-faced Barbara Wintroub, 47, an executive recruiter, gritted her teeth and stayed the course.

“I think I’m going to leave this to the younger women,” she groaned. “I don’t have fast-twitch muscles.”

A handful of followers shouted encouragement as the indoor athletes moved from machine to machine in the cavernous Sports Connection Vertical Club near LAX. “C’mon! Ten seconds! Push it!”

This was the big show--the finals--and the sponsor was springing for trips to Hawaii for the four top winners, guests included. “Think of sandy beaches, pina coladas,” said Walton, urging the laggers to hang in.

Racking up almost 11 1/2 miles, Donna Simms, 36, of Woodland Hills, a P.E. instructor and exercise physiologist, was the 35-plus women’s winner. Her technique included a startling, but therapeutic, karate yell in each homestretch.

Victory was special for Simms, whose sister had killed herself the day before. She hopes to scatter the ashes off Maui.

Fay Nykerk, 32, of Panorama City, an office worker and part-time vet’s assistant who’d never been a gym-goer until five years ago, was the women’s 34-and-under winner with 12-plus miles.

Steve Wulf, 39, of Woodland Hills, a souvenir merchandiser, and Eric Squires, 28, of Mission Viejo, who produces trade shows for scuba divers, also are Hawaii-bound. They had identical mileage, close to 14.

Did Wulf have anything to say? Well, yes. “I thought I was going to throw up with three minutes to go.”

But now comes the really tough part. He must decide who’s going to Hawaii with him. “I’ve promised about 10 different people.”

The event, by the way, was for a good cause: It raised $2,800 for the California Special Olympics.

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The Write Idea: From the Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery in Beverly Hills come season’s greetings--and a few gift ideas for those who collect documents signed by the rich or famous. For the tycoon? An Astor, Vanderbilt or Rockefeller, perhaps. For the exhibitionist? A Barnum, Capone, Elvis or Houdini. For the adventurer? Maybe a Byrd, Earhart or Lindbergh. And finally, “for the person with no interests: The Egyptian Book of the Dead.”

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This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.